10 Best Home Remedies To Get Rid Of Bed Bugs

No matter how clean your home is, you can still get a bed bug infestation. This is only because bed bugs travel, and as soon as they’re in your house, they feed off the sweat, blood, and carbon dioxide which people and animals create, so they stay forever.

10 Best Home Remedies To Get Rid Of Bed Bugs

Regularly washing your mattress sheets can reduce their amounts, but using these strong all-natural home remedies below will eradicate them for good. I have tried every single one of those remedies and much more when I had a bed bug infestation from buying an older mattress in college, so I am sharing with you all of the approaches that worked for me too as a few remedies which weren’t so powerful.

10 Best Home Remedies To Get Rid Of Bed Bugs

1. Vacuum

This is step one before you use any of the remedies below. Remove clutter and vacuum the entire house thoroughly. This ensures that you remove the bed bugs as well as their eggs.

Make certain that you vacuum upholstered furniture, drapes, drapes, shelves, boxes, and rugs. Bed bugs like to hide in obscure places, to make sure to use the hose on your vacuum cleaner to suck them up in obscure nooks and crannies.

Freeze non-washable items: whatever you can’t toss in the wash should be placed into plastic bags and thrown in the freezer. Leave the things there for at least 24 hours before removing and shaking them out to get rid of dead bedbugs and eggs.

Steam wash: For large items like bed mattresses or furniture, use a steam cleaner to the hottest setting (over 140° Fahrenheit). Run the steam cleaner within the bed or upholstery many times, paying attention to nooks and crannies where bed bugs tend to hide.

3. Rubbing Alcohol

Yes, alcohol is strong enough to kill virtually anything, including bed bugs and mattress bug larvae and eggs. Should you use a alcohol dilution of 90% or more, you can kill bed bugs on contact. I like to put alcohol in a spray bottle and spray bed bugs once I spot them as well as hiding places, such as nooks and crannies in which they put their eggs.

Note, however, that inhaling alcohol is poisonous for your health and it’s highly flammable, so use with care.

4. Tea Tree Oil

Tea Tree Oil is a much healthier choice to rubbing alcohol and is anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, and anti-viral. It is not toxic to inhale, so that you can spray just as much as you want, although it does have a powerful odor that can be off putting.

While tea tree oil cannot kill all of bed bugs on contact, but it is a powerful deterrent and masks the odor of perspiration, which bed bugs have been drawn to. I recommend using undiluted tea tree oil and spraying on your bed sheets and furniture together with it. Some men and women who are sensitive to the smell can dilute it just a little with water.

5. Hydrogen Peroxide

This can be utilized as a touch killer to spray on bed bugs, but it is not as deadly as isopropyl alcohol and it stains because it’s a bleaching agent. I would advise going with straight rubbing alcohol if you’d like a contact killer spray over hydrogen peroxide.

6. Lavender and Peppermint Oil

For some reason, bed bugs in addition to several other insects are repelled by the odor of peppermint and lavender. A lavender and peppermint essential oil spray may not kill bed bugs on contact, however, the spray does deter them out of your home.

7. Baking Soda

Here is another reason it’s always handy to have a pot of baking soda at the home – it can kill bed bugs.

It’s cheap, it works, so what is the drawback? Treating bed bugs with baking soda is timely – you’ll need to replicate the process of pruning and pruning regularly so as to banish them. This in turn, means you’re going to want a whole lot of powder, which makes this home remedy more expensive that it might initially seem.

8. Bleach

Bleach is a very harsh chemical so it’s effective as a contact spray, but it stains, so you shouldn’t use this in your furniture, bed sheets, or clothes.

9. Vinegar

Vinegar is an effective contact therapy, but it has to be used in conjunction with other home remedies on this list. I use undiluted vinegar and then spray on furniture and in cracks around the floor where bed bugs tend to hide. Vinegar does kill bed bugs, but it does not kill larvae, so make sure you vacuum or use D.E. in addition to spraying with vinegar.

10. Diatomaceous Earth

Diatomaceous Earth is frequently believed to be the most powerful of all of the natural mattress bug treatments, killing over 90 percent of bed bugs.

In addition, it is cheap and easy to use – its powdered form implies it can be sprinkled into even the tiniest of cracks and crevices. The drawback? It takes up to 10 days to work.

To use, apply 100% Nominal Earth on the affected area and leave for a few days. You should slowly start to see lifeless bed bugs, which you’ll be able to vacuum off. Repeat the process many times, until all bed bugs appear to have been eradicated.